LETTER TO THE EDITOR — Minister defends Lands for Life process

I feel it is important to respond to recent concerns about the Ontario government’s Lands for Life planning process and the mining industry.

There are many strong feelings about the Lands for Life discussions and the comprehensive planning process for our Crown lands. This is not surprising. It is a vital process in determining the future of our Crown lands and ensuring there is long-term certainty for our resource industries.

It’s important to remember how we got to this stage.

For years, Ontario’s land-use planning has been cumbersome and top-heavy, driven primarily by government bureaucrats. Often, the planning has appeared haphazard, leading to conflicts such as the decades-old (and still simmering) disputes in the Temagami region.

This didn’t matter to the former Liberal or New Democratic Party governments, which seemed quite content to announce new restrictions on mining activity with virtually no public input.

Ontario needed a better approach. We needed a comprehensive strategy that is driven by public input, rather than government bureaucracy.

That is why the Progressive Conservative government established the Lands for Life process last year. This process is not driven by bureaucrats.

Instead, we appointed northern citizens to three round tables to study the issue — in fact, you had to live in Northern Ontario to be appointed to a round table.

We asked those citizens’ round tables to draw up proposals for Crown land use. Each of the round tables has a miner and a prospector on it and many industry people have attended the round tables’ public meetings.

Everything is on the table. It’s quite possible the ministry will be advised to examine multiple-use land within our parks. This will be given full consideration.

I must stress that our government is committed to the mining industry. For example, it was our government which announced the land-use plan in Temagami that settled the area’s protection issues and led to the greatest staking boom in Ontario’s history.

Our government has actively worked to bring mining investment into Ontario.

We have reduced red tape and held the line on the fees to the mining industry.

I suppose we could go back to the old system of land-use planning used by the Liberals and NDP, in which government imposes new land-use restrictions on you, and you’ll have to learn to live with it. But that is not right.

We have put the people who care most about our resources in the driver’s seat. It will be people such as the prospectors, miners and others most directly involved in resource management who determine the future — and best — use of Ontario’s resources.

Chris Hodgson

Minister of Northern Development and Mines

Toronto